When does extended breastfeeding become weird....

pinkclouds

FatVonD wrote: »

Surely common sense tells you that the milk of the same species is going to be ideally suited to an infant over and above the milk of a different species?

It *is* - at source. However, formula milk has been modified to better suit human babies. No need to scare anyone using formula milk - it's not the same as milk fresh from the mammal. (Or from the soybean, in the case of dairy-free formula.)

I do think some of the big companies have rather questionable practices, regarding the promotion of formula milk in countries with poor access to "clean" water. Very few moms (as an over all percentage) are physically unable to produce breastmilk and in such cases they should be... kinda zealously motivated to do so when the alternative is contaminated formula milk. I'm aware you can even re-lactate in extreme cases. (I remember a feature, many years ago, on grandmothers being helped to re-lactate because their grandchildren were orphaned and that was the most feasible way to keep the babies alive.) But there is no such problem in this country, where I assume the majority of MSE'rs are reading this.

Errata

When does extended breastfeeding become weird....

The minute the little darlings start argueing the toss.

splishsplash

conradmum wrote: »

Have a look at this site, splishsplash:

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/ebf-benefits.html

I have looked at over a dozen references cited on that site. None of them have anything to do with extended breastfeeding (age 3-4+), most of them are ancient (I'm talking 25 - 30 years old!) and two are letters to journals about some other article...

... would someone like to take the work out of it for me just a little and direct me to which of the references are relevant?

conradmum

Well, there are a lot of references there and I don't have a lot of time to spare. But here's one that you may consider relevant:

Women with breast cancer had, on average, fewer births than did controls (2·2 vs 2·6). Furthermore, fewer parous women with cancer than parous controls had ever breastfed (71% vs 79%), and their average lifetime duration of breastfeeding was shorter (9·8 vs 15·6 months). The relative risk of breast cancer decreased by 4·3% (95% CI 2·9—5·8; p<0·0001) for every 12 months of breastfeeding in addition to a decrease of 7·0% (5·0—9·0; p<0·0001) for each birth. The size of the decline in the relative risk of breast cancer associated with breastfeeding did not differ significantly for women in developed and developing countries, and did not vary significantly by age, menopausal status, ethnic origin, the number of births a woman had, her age when her first child was born, or any of nine other personal characteristics examined. It is estimated that the cumulative incidence of breast cancer in developed countries would be reduced by more than half, from 6·3 to 2·7 per 100 women by age 70, if women had the average number of births and lifetime duration of breastfeeding that had been prevalent in developing countries until recently. Breastfeeding could account for almost two-thirds of this estimated reduction in breast cancer incidence.

Interpretation
The longer women breast feed the more they are protected against breast cancer. The lack of or short lifetime duration of breastfeeding typical of women in developed countries makes a major contribution to the high incidence of breast cancer in these countries.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140673602094540/abstract

I'm not sure why the age of the studies should put you off. It isn't as if human biology has changed much over the last few millenia, and if it's good research it should stand on its merits I think. I wouldn't, for example, doubt that smoking increases the risk of cancer just because the studies that established the correlation are old.